Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1243 Terrace ([-])

The construction of Huangyang Port has been going on for four years.

In the past four years, the area surrounded by shrubs, river valleys, and terraces has not changed much in terms of natural landscape, but in this coastal city on the banks of the Huangyang River (Santa Cruz River), earth-shaking changes have taken place.This change does not only refer to the water-saving agriculture that has developed in the local area in recent years, nor does it refer to the "short-grown" fruit forests, nor does it refer to the vegetable gardening industry developed by suburban residents around their houses. Change refers more to changes at the economic, social and demographic levels.In short, the rapid development of the wool textile industry has led to a large amount of capital and population flowing into the emerging city of Huangyanggang. The large amount of wool textiles, frozen meat, leather, tallow, and seafood have made the local economy more and more prosperous. Hair came alive and eventually affected every aspect of everyone's life.

"In four years, the population of Huangyanggang has more than tripled, and now it has reached nearly 5000 people, which is already half of the county's population." February 1660, 2, Patagonia The weather in Beijing is always colder than in the north, Yang Mingyang, a former army officer and Commissioner of the Northern Patagonia region, said with a sigh, wearing a local woolen coat.

Standing next to him was Liu Ang, the president of the Southern Railway Company, who was invited by Yang Mingyang to come to Huangyang Port to discuss the woolen trade, and also to go on vacation and hunt.You know, the Santa Cruz River has always been a holy place for hunting. Whether it’s the huge Andean vultures, the herds of deer and ostriches that can be seen everywhere, or the priceless foxes and pumas, they are all "satisfied and supported." "The best target of the wealthy generation on the East Coast.

At this time, the holiday was coming to an end, and Yang Mingyang and Liu Ang, two officials from the army system, accompanied by their entourage, strolled along the banks of the Huangyang River.At this time, a large water-saving agricultural area has been opened up by the riverside. Although the precipitation in this area is scarce and the weather is relatively cold, it is still no problem to grow crops such as rye, oats, barley, potatoes, and corn. Shortages for some local grains (although most still have to be imported locally).

Just like the water-saving agriculture in the Orange River Basin in South Africa, the Huangyang River also uses drip irrigation.However, the difference from South Africa is that the terrain on both sides of the Huangyang River is relatively high, which leads to a very embarrassing situation. It is a high cliff, which makes it very inconvenient to use the river water.Therefore, people on the east bank can only choose some low-lying river banks, and then use the latest 7.5-horsepower steam pump specially designed for agriculture to pump up the river water and drip-irrigate the farmland through pipes, so you can see the seemingly endless riverside. On the gravel beach, some green farmland is occasionally dotted, which is pleasing to the eye.

It is worth mentioning that the new 7.5-horsepower steam pump produced by Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Factory adopts a vertical fire tube boiler, which has the advantages of fast heat transfer, ignition and SAIC, and is suitable for both intermittent work and continuous work.Moreover, the steam unit has only three parts, so it is not too difficult to carry, and it is very convenient to apply. At present, it has begun to be extended to various industries-not only agriculture, but even the construction industry has gradually begun to apply.

"In the past, all the wool from Huangyang Port and Baima Port (established in early 1658, currently with more than 1000 residents, located in the later San Julian Port) was exported to the mainland. It’s not a small loss.” Yang Mingyang said with a flushed face: “However, including the United Textile Factory (Dayuhe Machine Textile Factory, Ping’an Weaving Factory, Luocha Textile Factory, and Dong’an Company all have investments) in After the establishment of a number of wool textile enterprises and workshops in Patagonia, the wool rights in Patagonia will no longer overflow, and a large amount of profits will remain in Patagonia, which will help improve our urban infrastructure and improve people's lives. Level is very important."

What Yang Mingyang said is not bragging. In fact, the United Textile Factory is recruiting a large number of Italian textile workers (in order to attract such skilled workers, those Tuscans and Venetians in the old continent who cannot speak Chinese have been granted citizenship. , the premise is that your technology is good enough and your experience is rich enough) and after introducing a lot of the latest textile machines, woolen textiles began to be produced in large quantities.These fairly good-quality woolen products of various colors are quite popular in Patagonia and the Southern Railway affiliated areas, and they did occupy these regions with relatively cold temperatures at the beginning.

And as the Northwest Reclamation Bank’s in-kind loans—usually in the form of cattle and sheep—increased, the herders on the east bank spread faster and faster on the grasslands, and the number of sheep began to increase geometrically. , wool production is naturally increasing day by day, and the only thing that can restrict them now is probably the lack of manpower. After all, shearing sheep also needs enough manpower to do it.

The increase in wool production has brought about the vigorous development of wool washing factories and textile factories. Even after seeing that the combined textile factory in Huangyang Port has made good profits, small-scale laundering factories have also appeared in Baima Port and Ximendu. Wool workshops, textile workshops, and the economic upsurge of the wool textile industry swept across Patagonia.

"Although the local environment is also suitable for grazing, it is mostly used for raising cattle and horses, which complements you." Liu Ang praised after hearing this, "After all, no one wants to use the best land for grazing. It is inefficient, and even if grazing, cattle and horses with higher economic value should be grazing, who would raise sheep?"

In fact, there is another fact that Liu Ang did not express clearly, that is, with the tough policies implemented by Yang Mingyang and Cai Huaze for many years, the living environment of the aborigines in Patagonia has greatly deteriorated, and the population has also increased. In order to reduce it, this undoubtedly made the sphere of influence of the people on the east coast bigger and bigger, and correspondingly, the scope of the pasture became bigger and bigger.

You only have to look at a map to see that Patagonia is four times the size of the grazing (and certainly more farming) Eastern Prairie, not to mention that the Eastern Prairie is now the most important region in the country, with towns, cities, Cultivated land, factories, railways, roads, reservoirs, forests, etc. abound, and it is impossible to use them to graze sheep on a large scale (even if there is some pasture, it is also used to raise cattle and horses). Therefore, the wool of Patagonia It is not surprising that the industry has defeated the local market and seized most of the market share of raw materials—in fact, most of Argentina’s wool production in later generations also came from the Patagonia region, and they were even scattered across the vast expanse for transportation. The wool resources on the platform and the construction of a large number of railway lines in Patagonia can be seen from this.

As the number of sheep flocks increases, the amount of "by-products" such as meat and dairy products inevitably increases.In Huangyang Port, a coastal port with relatively good conditions, there will be refrigerated ships from the South China Sea Transportation Company to transport frozen mutton almost every month. Recently, the Ministry of the Army has purchased a considerable amount of frozen meat, which seems to be reserved for large-scale military operations. After all, mutton in Patagonia is cheap.

Huangyang County——a newly established county in January 1660, it is also the 1st county-level administrative unit in the country, under the jurisdiction of Huangyang Town, Baima Township, Ximendu Township, and Shuanghui Township place, hence the name) four settlements, with a population of about 41—so, Hai'an County in the north is similar.The only difference over there is probably that many towns are located in the valley oasis area, with sufficient sunlight (less clouds, long daylight hours), and both the planting industry and the orchard industry are developing well, not to mention the ceramics produced by the Second Porcelain Factory. Produced.However, the county under the rule of Cai Huaze also has many settlements located in the pastoral areas of the terraces. Although the number of sheep populations is not very large due to the lack of loans from the Northwest Reclamation Bank, it cannot be considered small. Therefore, under the instruction of Yang Mingyang, Cai Huaze vigorously attracts investment in the local area (he even let his family go shirtless and open a factory in person) to develop the wool textile industry in order to gain profits and develop the local area.

Liu Ang came to Huangyang Port this time to meet Yang Mingyang, Commissioner of the Northern Patagonia Regional Administrative Office. One of the purposes was to discuss trade issues. It has never been put to good use.Liu Ang planned to discuss with Yang Mingyang to set up a joint venture textile factory in Xingnan Port, and then rely on the channels and relationships of the United Textile Factory to find a way to attract some workers from Italy, and at the same time select some from the Qing and Ming immigrants. Orito, together as workers in a newly established joint venture factory, uses the resources of the South Railway subsidiary (also known as Southern Patagonia) to develop the nearby wool textile industry in order to earn profits-recently Xingnan Port has begun to be like a local big City horse-drawn railcars were built like cities, and Xingnan Streetcar Company was formally established at the same time, which cost a lot of money. The wool textile industry looks quite promising (especially when it enters foreign markets in the future). The construction of facilities is not without minor supplements.

Although Yang Mingyang is not too happy about the fact that the Southern Railway Company also wants to engage in the wool textile industry, after all it means competition.But considering that they can't stop them at all, it's better to agree to the request of the Southern Railway Company and form a joint venture with them, so that they can share some benefits more or less, so as not to lose even one big guy.You must know that the monthly capital flow of the Southern Railway Company may be higher than the total annual financial revenue of the entire Northern Patagonia region (including some material subsidies distributed locally). If they want to do something seriously, there is no way If it can't be done for a reason, it will be a few years later at most.The current situation is that they are mainly focused on railway construction and maintenance, lucrative entrepot trade, and expanding territory in Chile, and have no intention of doing other things, so they need Yang Mingyang's assistance, otherwise they will not do it themselves How about developing this promising industry?

After figuring out this verse, Yang Mingyang stopped being hypocritical and readily agreed to Liu Ang's request, so both parties were very happy. The following is the details of the cooperation between the two parties' entourages. For this point, Yang Mingyang can only say "North and South". Tagonia "belongs to the same line", and the joint venture between the two parties left a lot of profits in Patagonia, which is better than the overflow of wool rights. Just like Argentina in later generations, Patagonia's wool was shipped to Buenos It is much better for Ellis to process and produce, and the vast Taiwan area has become a pure raw material export place.

The win-win cooperation between the Southern Railway Subsidiary and the Northern Patagonia region, perhaps the only one that is not quite used to it, is probably the local Dayuhe Machine Textile Factory.This enterprise originally owned by the East Coast Company - after several capital increases and share expansion, the state-owned shares now have 40% - the proportion of wool textiles in the products is very large, and most of its raw materials come from the East Coast prairie, river The intensive animal husbandry in the region and the Duck Lake Basin has scattered sources and high costs, and it cannot be compared with the Patagonia region at all.Therefore, this company is very dissatisfied with the integration of wool resources on the Patagonian platform. Although it also holds 20% of the shares in the joint textile factory, it does have a lot of worries about this kind of enterprise that has shaken its own foundation. .

It's just that they don't have a good solution now, either to improve their management and craftsmanship, reduce production costs, or simply relocate the factory to Hai'an Port or Huangyang Port, there is no other way.Because Cai Huaze, Yang Mingyang and even Liu Ang in the Patagonia region are all unreasonable bastards. These people have made it clear that they want to engage in wool and wool spinning trusts. What can you do?Are you going to sue them?impossible!

Liu Ang did not stay in Huangyang Port for too long. In the early morning of February 2, he took a passenger and cargo ship of the Atlantic Liner Company to Xingnan Port. Including the first-line branch line) is entering a critical moment, he is not at ease if he does not go to self-study and check.

And on the day Liu Ang and others left, several procurement managers from the Ministry of the Army also arrived at Huangyang Port by boat.They transferred money through the Northwest Reclamation Bank, and bought 1000 tons of frozen mutton and more marinated soft fish, calamari (there are also fishing boats in Huangyang Port, but the scale is smaller) and other seafood. , it seems that they are about to go to war.Moreover, these officers from the Ministry of the Army also quietly revealed that the staff officers who came to the six counties of Patagonia to recruit cavalry have also been on the road. It is conservatively estimated that these staff officers will recruit 1500-550 cavalry in the entire Taiwan area (including Tierra del Fuego) Excellent militia, these people will join the local cavalry battalion ([-] cavalry) to participate in a "large-scale military operation" scheduled for the second half of the year-as for what military operation, the procurement managers of the War Department did not specify.Although they had some guesses in their hearts, and there were some rumors in the Ministry of the Army, who dared to announce it?Don't die?It's really a display of military law!

Today I hung up the water, took medicine, and temporarily suppressed the inflammation.First update 4000 words, and then decide whether to update twice tomorrow depending on the situation.

(End of this chapter)